"Melanie Rawn - Salve Regina" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)

dead hearth and dipped it into the water.

Margot first, she was the youngest. Madeleine. Arnaud. Anne. Jean.
Standing beside their small beds, she lifted her weary hands and gave
wordless thanks to the Queen of Heaven as their breathing eased and their
burning skin cooled.

Anne stirred, opened her eyes, and whispered, "Maman?"

Berthilde wept and laughed and hugged her children to her breast.
After a time, when they had fallen into healing sleep, she picked up the
buckets and started for the blacksmith's home; he was ill, and his family
were close to death, they should have the water first.

The smithy was beyond the Church. As she neared the gray stone
sanctuary, she knew she must give the water first of all to the priest. He
was God's Voice in the village, a sincere and holy man, not like his
long-dead predecessor who had always reeked of ale. P├иre Jerome went to
every house every day, to comfort and hear confession and give the Last
Rites. He would be wiser than she about whose need was greatest.

Accordingly, she carried the buckets up the three steps (symbolizing
the Holy Trinity) and under the lintel with its carved wooden Virgin
huddled beneath the eaves. As she passed below the Lady's sight, she
looked up. Although this stiff, sorrowing face was nothing like the warm
loveliness of the woman she had seen in the forest, she fancied she saw a
smile curve the corners of those lips.

The priest was at the altar, but in a pose Berthilde had never seen
before: prostrate on the floor, arms flung out, fists clenched and face
hidden against cold stones. Shocked, she stood mute at the back of the
nave, listening as he cried out and beat his fists on the flags for anguish.

"No," she heard herself say, and set down the buckets, and hurried to
him. She bent, touched his shoulder. "Oh, no, you must not, P├иre Jerome!
You must put away your despair, we are saved!"

He scrambled to his feet, a tall, thin, ascetic man in brown cassock and
rope cincture with a fine ivory cross on a leather thong around his neck.
He dashed tears from his face and stared down at Berthilde.

"Saved? When only today three more have sickened, and two others
have died? What else is there but despair when there are too many bodies
for the ground to receive?"

"There will be no more deaths." She tugged him by the arm to the back
of the nave, and showed him the water. "I found itтАФno, I was led to it by
the Blessed Lady, and I saw her, P├иre Jerome, I saw her and she spoke to
me andтАФ"